


The Five Stages of Getting Over Shit

by mthrfkrgdhrwego (universalchampbalor)



Series: Six Idiot Children with Guns [1]
Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: 5+1 Things, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Fake AH Crew, Five Stages of Grief, Immortal Fake AH Crew, M/M, Mild Gore, Temporary Amnesia, Temporary Character Death, i just love this idea, yall
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-03
Updated: 2017-12-03
Packaged: 2019-02-10 08:02:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12907671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/universalchampbalor/pseuds/mthrfkrgdhrwego
Summary: She can't be gone.She can't.Michael wouldn't allow it.AKA 5+1 of Michael and the five stages of grief





	The Five Stages of Getting Over Shit

  1. _The tragedy_



“Jack? Jack!” Michael’s voice sounded muffled to himself, buried amongst gunfire and explosions. When he blinked, he saw red. He saw the red that blossomed from Jack’s chest and mouth, staining her skin and Hawaiian shirt. He couldn’t move as he watched her fall, knees hitting the pavement first until she was face down as blood pooled around her.

Geoff’s voice crackled through Michael’s coms, asking if he was okay. The older man’s voice felt far off, distant, like it wasn’t pressed against his eardrum. Before he knew it, he was barking out, “It’s Jack,” as he bolted. Somehow, he avoided the gunfire from the police. _‘The same thing can’t be said for Jack,’_ he thought bitterly.

He carefully rolled her onto her back, head cradled on his lap. Her usually bright eyes were empty, shallow, clouded with the threat of death. The familiar ruddy hue of her cheeks was replaced with a pallor that spoke of blood loss. Her chest was heaving with broken breaths that rattled her lungs.

“Michael.” She gasped, an arm coming to grab his hand. Her hand was clammy and slick with blood. “Is… Is everyone safe?” She rasped, licking her chapped, bloodied lips.

“They’re good. Alfredo and Gav got everyone out. Ryan and Jeremy are trying to get the cops under control. Trevor got clipped, but he’ll be fine.” Michael said, smoothing a hand through her hair.

“Guys, we need an extraction. Jack’s been hit.” He barked into his coms. “We’re on the beach. Surrounded. Hurry.”

The few minutes it took for Jeremy and Ryan to show felt like hours. By the time the Roosevelt crashed onto the beach, heavy automatics hanging out the windows, Jack was barely breathing. Ryan got out, dual guns pointed at the cops, nary missing a shot. Jeremy helped Michael carry Jack, laying her across the backseat with her head in Michael’s lap. The shorter man hopped back into the driver’s seat and let out a sharp, piercing whistle. Ryan ran back to the car as soon as he heard it.

“Guys, hurry. She’s not breathing.” Michael snapped, hands shaking as he touched her neck. “No pulse, either. I don’t have the room to do compressions.” He barely saw the look Ryan and Jeremy shared but he didn’t care. “Hurry!”

Two hours later, after a long surgery, Mica and Geoff came back, tired and sullen. “She lost too much blood. The bullet nicked her abdominal aorta. There was nothing we could do.”

  1. _Denial_



Michael felt numb. “No. She’s not gone. She can’t be.” He said, pushing past their medics. Ryan and Jeremy tried to hold him back but thought against it when they saw the look on his face. The ‘operating room’ was nothing more than a cold room sterilized as much as possible with a ceramic table in the center.

Jack was on the table, her chest pried open. Her organs were pushed aside, still connected and clamped outside of her stomach next to the layers of fat and skin.

He got one look at her corpse before he collapsed.

The next few days, he was a shell. He refused to mourn with everyone else. Instead, he went about his business, doing jobs and running errands. He refused to look at Jack’s closed bedroom door, at the snapdragons sitting on the ground, the occasional dead bloom on the ground, a grim façade of death.

If he didn’t acknowledge it, it wasn’t true.

  1. _Anger_



He broke his fingers multiple times in one day, either on walls or on rival faces. His knuckle dusters didn’t help the pulsing, the bruising, the bleeding, the breaking. He came back to the penthouse with seven broken fingers, a black eye, a split lip, a broken nose, and three cracked ribs.

He was still aching to fight.

Geoff sat him down and stitched his wounds, bandaged his cuts, and halfheartedly chided him. He was taking Jack’s death extremely hard. After all, he had lost his wife of nine years.

The only reason he stopped was because of Geoff’s tired, hurt look as he kissed the bandages over his knuckles.

  1. _Bargaining_



Eventually, the anger faded. It was a feeling Michael wasn’t used to. His entire life, he had been angry, for as long as he could remember. Now that the fire and pain roiling in his stomach was gone, he felt almost… empty.

The loss hit him in waves. Jack had been the one to take him in, back when he was living on the streets as a gun for hire with more than enough grudges buried under his breastbone. She had bandaged his wounds, taught him how to wire bombs, held him when he woke up in tears from nightmares he could never escape. She was the first to kiss him, slow and gentle when he exploded after a heist gone wrong.

And she was gone.

He sat on the roof, hoping, praying to every god he could think of. He wanted her back. He sobbed and screamed and _begged_ until his throat was hoarse and his knees were dented and scraped from the rough roof.

He was not a religious man. He had lost too many times, seen too many tragedies, to believe in any higher power. No one could be that cruel. Still, he sat there, tears pouring down his face, calling out to someone, _anyone_ who would listen, who could bring her back.

He just wanted her back.

  1. _Depression_



When the desperation faded, he was left numb. He planted himself on the couch, spread his roots, and sat. He rarely slept, mostly just staring at the blank TV or at Jack’s door. He didn’t eat or drink anything other than Red Bull, moonshine, and whatever junk food he could find in the pantry.

Every once and a while, he would leave the penthouse, usually with Ryan or Jeremy. They didn’t try to get him to talk, and they didn’t speak about her. They just let him be, content to just get him to move. On those days, he went into a frenzy, moving and moving and moving like a top spinning faster and faster. Once he started, he didn’t want to stop, because if he stopped, then he went back to being a husk.

He had dumb ideas and did risky shit, tossing abandon out the window and risking his life for dares and ideas he would normally scoff at. Everyone was worried, but no one could get him to stop.

They just had to wait for him to burn out.

  1. _Acceptance_



After a while, he came back to himself. It took several long months, and that was just for the depression and rage to fade. He was still angry, and hearing her name still brought a sharp pain to his heart, but he could function.

He was better.

They were back to running jobs within a year, though they had to restructure. Since they didn’t have their go-to getaway driver, they rotated out a few different criminals they knew and trusted, as well as Gavin every once and a while.

It wasn’t perfect, and it never would be, but it worked.

He was able to move on. They went on dates and celebrated anniversaries and even though there was always an empty seat at the table, he didn’t break down when he saw it. He was whole again. It was nice.

While it lasted.

_+1. Return_

Four years later, after healing and heartbreak and coming to terms with the fact that _she wasn’t coming back_ , she came back.

It was the middle of the night, the day before a heist. They were up late, arguing about who their getaway driver would be. Gavin was working for hacking, and every other person they trusted enough was either busy, in hiding, or out of the country.

In the thick of it, when Ryan had a knife leveled on Geoff and Jeremy had a gun against Gavin’s forehead, the door creaked open.

Standing there was Jack Pattillo, in all her not dead glory.

Her hair was longer, now down to her shoulders when it had been chin length. She wasn’t wearing her usual Hawaiian shirt and striped shorts. Instead, she was wearing a soft grey Henley and faded jeans. She was staring at her feet, the bags under her eyes appear even then.

“I don’t have anywhere to be. I could help.” She said, her voice just as thick and deep as before.

Michael broke down crying at the sound.

After several emotional hours, they were able to get answers out of her. Where had she been? She went back home, back to Austin, when she woke up. Why hadn’t she come back sooner? She was confused and only had bits and pieces of memories to work off of. Why now? She finally had enough of her mind back to come home and deal with the consequences of her death.

Is it really you?

Yes.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm faahc on Tumblr! Come bug me!


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